There is no skills shortage in America's workforce - here's the dead giveaway evidence

[Zalatix]

http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2012/02/21/skills-mismatch-unemployment_n_1292273.html?ref=business

The Bureau of Labor Statistics also calculates job openings in manufacturing -- and its numbers are less than half those cited by the Post, which attributed its figures to the Manufacturing Institute, an industry trade group. According to the government data, last year the average number of vacancies was less than 230,000. There are seven to eight times that many unemployed manufacturing workers, Sum said. The Post reported that the shortage of skilled workers has also pushed up wages. But here, too, Sum said, the evidence does not match up.

Since the beginning of the century, manufacturing wages for production workers have barely increased, Sum said. And in the last two years, as employers have said they've been having difficulty filling spots, wages have declined slightly.

"If there was a big shortage of workers, than we should find wages rising. But this just isn't the case," Sum said. "That doesn't mean that specific companies won't ever have trouble finding a machinist, but when you add it all up, it doesn't amount to very much."

The summary: Who ever heard of a skills shortage that didn't coincide with a rise in wages for those who have the desired skills?

As I said... a dead giveaway. The liars have been caught red-handed.

[Mopar151]

1. Sum said: nothing new here

The same twaddle we've been hearing since Regan. Raise starting pay, plan on a week's training for anyone you hire, start planning a real profit sharing system. Then stand back and let it roll!

[geckosfeet]

2. A week's training is more like an orientation.

Real training takes planning, logistics and time. Three to six months for any real education to take place.

But businesses and the owners do not want that. They want button and paper pushing automatons. Not creative thinking individuals.

The education and training lie is just that, a lie designed to cover their butts.

[Mopar151]

5. I would agree - but employers today want to do NOTHING

There is an OSHA course for construction laborers & trades ("OSHA10&quot - training on specific machines - or software packages. And then there is the mental health screening for middle managers.......

[NNN0LHI]

3. Takes four years to complete a machinist apprenticeship

And I don't think we have a healthy apprenticeship program in this country any more. I remember when the one factory I worked at always had 400-500 apprentices on course for different trades at any given time. We were the biggest customers of the local Community College. That College has just about closed up and blown away now. It is depressing to even drive by and look at it any more. Empty and weed covered parking lots as far as the eye can see now.

This type of short term planning is going bite us in the ass.

Don

[xchrom]

4. Du rec. Nt